Interlude
by PutMoneyInThyPurse
Summary: NS and IK's version of a peaceful New Year's Eve in each other's company. Or reasonable facsimile thereof. Fluff-haters do beware, and HP fans on alert, advance apologies.


Note: Absolute and utter fluff. Which I like, but which I understand is frowned upon in sophisticated circles. My tiny gift to a small and (by me) beloved fandom.

For UNCLE authors GM and Wendie Z, if they should ever read this, for all the pleasure they have given me, and of course, always, for Leviathan, who, I hope, still knows why. Happy New Year.

* * *

"Ill...ya." His breath caught, but he gasped in air and continued, hoping to get a response. "Illya. Illya. Illya."

"Yes, Napoleon." Kuryakin's long-suffering tone was only slightly hampered by his panting, a consequence, Napoleon supposed, of running around setting explosives and then trekking through the undergrowth half-carrying a partner who was drugged out of his mind. "Is it anything important?"

Weakly moving the arm Illya had slung by main force over his shoulders, Napoleon repeated the same thing he'd been saying for the last five minutes. Or trying to: his tongue weighed a ton, and he could barely get the words out. "If you'd just leave me behind and run…"

A huff, and the pace redoubled. Napoleon tried valiantly to match the loping gait, couldn't control his legs, and stumbled to his knees. Damn. He must remember to tell THRUSH that their truth drug, while useless, might be perhaps effective as a neural inhibitor.

"Damn," Illya cursed as he knelt by Napoleon. "Whatever else this THRUSH drug may or may not do, it's certainly effective as a neural inhibitor." An arm round his shoulders, a hand on his chest. On his heart. He vaguely remembered his partner injecting him with an antidote when he'd come to set him free. "How's your vision, Napoleon? Any blurring?"

He blinked, concentrated. "No, perfectly normal."

"You in any pain? –besides your wrists?" Electrified shackles were one of THRUSH's newest inventions. Napoleon hoped they'd discontinue them in a hurry.

"No, I'm fine."

"Good." And with that, Napoleon found himself slung over a shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"I can take care of myself," he muttered, miffed.

"I can see that," Illya replied dryly as he broke into a trot.

"What time'd you set the explosives?" Napoleon managed to mumble.

He could have sworn there was a smile in the voice. "That's for me to know and you to find out."

* * *

A tree. He was propped up under a tree. He could see its branches above him, silhouetted dark against the purple night sky, and he was leaning against its trunk, solid and warm—

What?

No he wasn't – it was Illya who was leaning on the trunk, seated in the damp grass, and he, Solo, was sitting with his back propped against his partner's chest, Illya's knees drawn up on Napoleon's either side for balance. His partner's discarded coat was draped over him and he could feel that he was sitting on something soft – a muffler perhaps? The feeling of being in a cocoon of warmth was comforting and he found himself feeling a little light-headed.

"Just in time to watch the fireworks," his partner's voice came from above, and again he was intrigued by the impish smile in the words.

He tried to calculate how long he'd been out, and found to his chagrin that his senses were fuzzy – he couldn't. "Just when did you set the charges for, anyway?"

He felt rather than saw his partner gaze intently at the valley below. "Midnight, December 31st."

His head came up – he knew he'd been in THRUSH's hands for several days, definitely over a week, but he wasn't aware he'd lost track of time to such an extent. "I missed Christmas?"

"Sorry. We had quite a time finding you," his partner said evenly, but Napoelon could hear a darkness, a kind of pain almost, underlying the voice. Before he could fathom it further, the information he had just been given clicked into place.

"It's New Year's Eve?"

"Mm." He could hear the smile curving around his partner's words, on his lips. "What's a New Year's celebration without fireworks?" The first dull boom came from below, evidence of Illya's handiwork. "Ah, good. Happy New Year, partner."

Napoleon was still trying to take it in when he saw the first billowing cloud of flame burst forth from the roof of the satrap, followed by shooting stars that soared into the air and exploded in a burst of colour... followed by a Catherine wheel and gigantic exploding green and golden lights that lit up the velvet sky above them like a canopy of surreal heavenly bodies. For a moment he watched, a mesmerised smile on his face… but then he twisted to look at Illya. "You mixed fireworks in with the explosives?" he asked incredulously.

The warm surface behind him shrugged. "I thought, if I ever found you…" The calm voice faltered and even in Napoleon's sluggish state, he still recognized the unvoiced sentiment in the calculated lightness of the tone. "No time to go to any of the clubs you like. Might as well make the most of it." Another dull boom. "You're missing the show."

He turned and watched as the rumbling reverberations of the charges his partner had planted blasted golden flame and scarlet fumes into the purple sky, followed by coruscating streaks of purple, which then that turned into showers of bright violet lights that seemed to stream down the sides of the sky all around them, as they sat under the brilliance raining down upon them.

Napoleon shook his head. An hour ago he had been strapped down, shaking and hurting, in a sterile room under fluorescent lighting, and now he sat safe and comfortable against his partner, who, not content with saving his life, not content with easing his pain, not content with keeping him comfortable and warm, had transformed the necessary destruction of a THRUSH satrap into a fireworks show—to entertain him, to entertain them both, to inject a little steel-edged fun into their tense, hard lives. He shook his head. "Only you would add fireworks into an explosive cocktail, partner mine."

"I do what I can," Illya said modestly. "Happy New Year."

He shifted slightly to get Napoleon settled more comfortably against him. Solo leaned back, sighing as he watched the show. Overcome, he took a deep breath of contentment, searched for simple words and found them.

"Happy New Year, Illya Nikolaivech."

The sharp intake of breath from above him told him that his use of the patronymic had done its work. He felt the chest beneath him rise and fall, and then the wiry arms slipped around his chest to hold him, the strong hands clasping one another in a corded-steel grip right over his heart. "Happy New Year ...Napoleon." There was the faintest tremor in the tone.

"You are aware, of course," Napoleon said, trying to keep his voice light, knowing it was a desperately bad idea but needing to say it, "that you are the greatest gift life could ever have given me?"

The arms holding him pulled tighter, and there was a lapse before his partner spoke again. "You know that no one is indispensable to me, Napoleon," the Russian said slowly, resignedly. "I have lived all my life alone." He nodded in understanding: this was Illya's apology for not being able to respond in kind. "I never relied—depended—on anyone." Another pause, and he could feel Illya shaking his head. "I cannot allow anyone to become important to me. But if I lost you… I would…miss you a great deal."

Napoleon nodded. It was no more than he already knew, but it was a great concession –and a great compliment to him— for Illya to even say this much. He opened his mouth, intending to say something to lighten the mood, but all that came out was, "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Naturally," Illya replied haughtily, and Napoleon smiled at the return of their banter. "I am indispensable."

"Oh, don't flatter yourself, Kuryakin."

"No, really," his partner continued loftily, secure now that he was back on familiar ground, "what would you have done without me?"

"Died," Napoleon said flatly, before he could stop himself.

The shudder that went through his partner's frame was palpable. "Please do not say that," Kuryakin said in his oddly reserved, English way. The grip clasping him melted into a full-out embrace, Illya pulling him tightly to his body, hands splayed to rub his chest and massage his shoulders. "I should hope you never succumb to this kind of treatment, even if I am not there." The slim frame tensed, as though its owner was making a decision, and then the voice said haltingly, "Besides, you wouldn't leave me alone in the world with no-one to trust, would you?"

Solo's breath caught in his throat. "You trust plenty of people. There'd be others. Waverly, Mark, April…"

"I told you that no-one is indispensable to me, and that much is true," Illya said seriously. "I would survive no matter what. But it would be very hard to go back to mere survival when I have had a taste of what it is like to be truly alive."

"Corrupting Western influence?" Napoleon tried to keep the mood light, his head clearing even though his voice was still slurred. He fancied he heard the drone of rescue planes in the distance. Well, they – and everybody else for twenty miles around – would have no trouble locating them.

"Oh, you have corrupted me all right. Showing me that life is to be savoured. Giving me the safety to do so."

At Napoleon's sharp turn of the head, he nodded, not backing down. "That was—is—your gift to me." He paused for a moment, as though searching for words. "When I came to this country, I…" He broke off, then began again, searching for words in halting, disjointed phrases. "Even in Europe, I did not…" A breath. "To be accepted is not so simple…I… There was no-one with whom…" Napoleon felt his partner's head shake in frustration. "What is that new term they have, the psychologists? A safe space? With you, even from the start, I had—that. With you, I can—let my guard down. Be—comfortable. Let go." The wonderment that suffused the slightly-accented voice made Napoleon shiver. "Have…" He gestured to the explosions with his chin, arms still clasped about his partner's chest, and the warmth in his tone was a shining flame on a winter night. "Have fun, even. Just for its own sake, for the sheer joy of being alive. I had never done that before I met you."

"I—"

But apparently his partner wasn't finished. "This…" He gestured at the colourful light display still bursting cheerfully around and above them, "I would have not had the idea for it if it hadn't been for you." With a final, deep breath, Illya sighed, "No-one is indispensable to my _survival_. But without you, Napoleon, it would be the end of _life _as I know it."

Napoleon gaped, speechless. Was this a drug-induced hallucination or had Illya inhaled a bit too much gas while liberating the satrap?

The voice took on a lighter tone. "And if you ever hold it against me, I shall be forced to kill you."

_Oh, Illya._ Some things could not be said, but he slipped his hands up to clasp the white ones corded so tightly about his chest, keeping him safe. He rubbed his palms against the warm knuckles, smiling, his tone equally airy. "Perish the thought."

He felt his friend's cheek come to rest against the top of his head. "Also, I shall deny it."

Napoleon's eyebrows rose as he saw how embarrassed Illya had been to say this at all, and wondered just how close he, Napoleon, had come to death for his taciturn partner to be spouting off in this fashion. Drawing Illya's fingers through his own, he firmly interlaced them with his. "I'm not going anywhere, _tovarich_," he said firmly.

"We both know that is a promise you cannot keep." The words dropped into the night air like lead, almost damping the blazing brightness of the fireworks. Napoleon felt the man's chest rise and fall in a silent sigh. "Neither can I, for that matter," Kuryakin shrugged with resignation. "And yet…"

Suddenly, fiercely, Illya pulled Napoleon to him so tightly it was as though he wanted to make them one, to weld them together so closely that even Death would never be able to separate them. The Slav's wiry arms trembled with the fierceness of his passion.

Napoleon stilled for a moment in complete astonishment, shocked and humbled by the depth of what his partner had just revealed. And then he grinned, closed his eyes, leaned back into the fierce embrace and clasped Illya's arms as tightly as he could, for he, too, felt the same way. And if the only thing that would drive them to express it was such a situation—if the only way they could admit their affection for each other was like this, watching a fireworks show in the middle of nowhere waiting for a rescue—if this was to be the only time he would ever physically express his closeness to this mysterious, frustrating, unfathomable, brilliant person he loved above anyone and anything else—well, never let it be said that Napoleon Solo was one to miss an opportunity.

"Happy New Year," the rescue chopper pilot said when she finally located their position, waking Napoleon in the grey light of dawn, the show over, satrapy long since burned to the ground.

Napoleon graced her with a dazzling smile. "Oh, it will be," he said, smiling up at his partner, deeply asleep slumped over him, still holding him in his arms. "It will be."


End file.
